


Fire and Music

by HASA_Archivist



Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Multi-Age, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-25
Updated: 2015-04-25
Packaged: 2018-03-25 15:28:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3815540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HASA_Archivist/pseuds/HASA_Archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Words are clumsy things.  The Maiar prefer to use their own speech, a language of flame and song.  But if Arien had to use words to explain, then this would be her story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fire and Music

**Author's Note:**

> Note from the HASA Transition Team: This story was originally archived at [HASA](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Henneth_Ann%C3%BBn_Story_Archive), which closed in February 2015. To preserve the archive, we began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in February 2015. We posted announcements about the move, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this author, please contact The HASA Transition Team using the e-mail address on the [HASA collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/hasa/profile).

How to explain, how to find the words...

Words are clumsy things, designed for the use of lesser creatures, bound to the earth. But if I could turn those words to my purpose, understand how to explain to you fire and music, flame and song, passion exclaimed with the voice of the voiceless… if I could speak of finding a harmony that echoed within every part of your being; a song that matched your own, echoed it, enhanced it, a song so powerful that you feared its intensity might burn you, _you_ , a creature of fire and light…

If I could find the words, which I cannot, then perhaps you could hope to understand but a part of what drew me to Olorin.

It was not, as I have heard it said, _a moth to the flame_ , but rather as two flames that mirrored and fed each other, the whole being greater than the sum of the parts. The feeling that having come together, having found the other half of myself, that to be apart would be somehow to be diminished, to be less than I was in the beginning.

I believe the word the Children of Eru use for this feeling is _love._

Yet there were other bonds to tie me, other promises to keep. The Firstborn speak of _destiny,_ and _fate,_ but I would name it nothing more than the call of song, my duty to the fire from which I came.

‘Tis a strange form he takes now, although I suppose my form would be no less strange to his companions, should they even be able to look upon it with their lesser sight. And although I would keep him warmed by my light, by my _love_ , I must abandon him each time I sink beneath the horizon, to hide myself from this world. It is my duty, and I am not Tilion, that inconstant child. I am Arien, flame to drive back the shadow, and my rising shall be ever the same, in a changing world.

I cannot speak to him, but we have never needed _words_. We speak in fire and music, love-flame and heart-song, and each time I rise the winged creatures of the earth raise their voices in a chorus for our love, the lament of beings who cannot soar but a little way above the ground.

In the end, when it is time for me to lay my burden down, he will be waiting.

In the end, there shall be music.  



End file.
